Is Rainier Ave S Off-Scale Dangerous? Yes.
- March 5, 2015
Open larger view in Tableau.
During a recent Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) evening meeting to talk about Rainier Ave S safety improvements, a driver crashed into a nearby local business on Rainier Ave South.
Ironic, yes? Unusual? Unfortunately no. This was car number EIGHT driven into a Rainier Ave S business in the past year, and in 2014 alone, Rainier Ave S was hit with 1,243 crashes.
SDOT's slide deck for their safety meeting included a table illustrating the number of crashes on Rainier Ave S, relative to other high capacity corridors around Seattle. It showed Rainier Ave S does indeed have a crashing problem.
What the SDOT table didn't illustrate was that Rainier Ave S doesn't carry nearly as many vehicles per day as other local high capacity corridors. When you factor in the fact Rainier Ave S carries far fewer vehicles, the carnage on Rainier Ave S spikes dramatically.
Kenneth Trease @kptrease put together a Tableau viz chart to illustrate the utter chaos on Rainier Ave South. Per vehicle mile, Rainier Ave S has THREE times as many crashes as Lake City Way NE, and FOUR times as many as Aurora Avenue North.
Yes, we need #VisionZeroRainier now! Sign the petition!